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CELTIC SCOTLAND
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_Printed by Thomas and Archibald Constable_
FOR
DAVID DOUGLAS, EDINBURGH
LONDON HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO.
CAMBRIDGE MACMILLAN AND BOWES.
GLASGOW JAMES MACLEHOSE AND SONS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CELTIC SCOTLAND:
A HISTORY OF
Ancient Alban
BY
WILLIAM F. SKENE, D.C.L., LL.D.
HISTORIOGRAPHER-ROYAL FOR SCOTLAND.
VOLUME II.
CHURCH AND CULTURE.
_SECOND EDITION._
EDINBURGH: DAVID DOUGLAS
1887
_All Rights reserved._
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
This volume being now likewise out of print, it has been thought right
to issue a new edition.
The Author has for this purpose carefully revised the text, and made
such corrections and alterations as appeared to be demanded. These,
however, he was glad to find are few in number and unimportant in
character.
EDINBURGH, 27 INVERLEITH ROW,
_2nd May 1887_.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
The volume now published contains the second of the three books into
which the history of Scotland during the Celtic period has been divided,
and, like the first volume, forms a substantive work in itself. It deals
entirely with the history of the old Celtic Church, and its influence on
the culture of the people. The early ecclesiastical history of Scotland
is a subject beset with even greater difficulties than those which
affect its early civil history. It shares with the latter that
perversion of its history which has been caused by the artificial system
elaborated by our oldest historians. The fictitious antiquity given by
it to the settlements of the Scots is accompanied by a supposed
introduction of Christianity at an earlier period, equally devoid of
historic foundation; and this supposed early Christian Church has given
rise to what may be called the Culdean controversy, by which the true
history has been further obscured. It is a disadvantage which affects
the history of all churches, that it is almost inevitably viewed through
the medium of the ecclesiastical prepossessions of the historian. This
has been peculiarly the case with the history of the early church in
Scotland, which has become the battle-field on which Catholic and
Protestant, Episcopalian and Presbyterian, have contended for their
respective tenets; and this evil is greatly aggravated when the basis of
the controversy consists of such a strange mixture of fact and fable as
that which characterises the history of the early Scottish Church, as it
is usually represented.
People are tired, however, of this incessant repetition by church
historians of the same one-sided arguments, and partial statement of
authorities adduced to assimilate the early Celtic Church, in its
doctrine and constitution, to one or other of the great ecclesiastical
parties of the modern church. They want to know what sort of a church
this early Celtic Church really was, irrespective of all ecclesiastical
bias, and this the Author has attempted to show in the following volume.
He has endeavoured simply to tell the tale of the early Celtic Church,
as he finds it recorded in the oldest and most authentic sources of
information. With this view he has treated of the history of the church
mainly in its external aspect, and has been unable to touch, to any
great extent, upon its doctrinal history, or to attempt to exhibit its
theological characteristics. The discussion of these questions must
still be left to the polemical historians. From the works of these
writers the Author has thus derived little assistance; but his task has
been greatly aided by another class of writers, who have brought to bear
upon the different branches of the subject that sound judgment,
extensive research, and critical acumen, which are requisite to
extricate the true history of the early church from the fictitious and
controversial matter with which it has been encumbered.
The first to bring these qualities to bear upon the subject was
undoubtedly the late Dr. Joseph Robertson, in a very remarkable essay
which appeared in the _Quarterly Review_ in 1849, under the title of
‘Scottish Abbeys and Cathedrals’ (vol. lxxxv. p. 103); and this was
followed by a valuable essay ‘On the Scholastic Offices in the Scottish
Church in the twelfth and thirteenth Centuries,’ printed in 1852 in the
_Miscellany of the Spalding Club_ (vol. v. p. 56). But, in 1857, there
appeared by far the most important work bearing upon the history of the
early Scottish Church. This was the edition of Adamnan’s Life of St.
Columba, by the Rev. Dr. Reeves, now Dean of Armagh, printed for the
Irish Archæological Society and the Bannatyne Club. This work is a
perfect model of an exhaustive treatment of its subject, and exercised
at once an influence upon the study of Scottish church history, the
importance of which cannot be over-estimated. It was followed, in 1864,
by a work of the same author on _The Culdees of the British Islands as
they appear in History_, in which he has brought together almost all the
evidence we possess with regard to their history. In the same year the
late Bishop of Brechin commenced his useful labours in this department
of history by publishing the Missal of Arbuthnot, with a valuable
preface. And in 1866 the late Dr. Joseph Robertson produced his last and
most important work, viz., the _Statuta Ecclesiæ Scoticanæ_, which he
edited for the Bannatyne Club, in two volumes, the first of which
consists of an elaborate introduction by himself. It is cause of much
regret that this accurate and acute historian had not lived to devote
his great abilities and extensive research to a complete history of the
church, which would have rendered the present attempt unnecessary.
Dr. John Stuart, who had already, in his great work on the Sculptured
Stones of Scotland, made one of the most important contributions to the
elucidation of Scottish antiquities which we possess, edited in 1868 the
Charters of the Priory of the Isle of May for the Society of
Antiquaries, with a valuable preface; and in 1869 we are indebted to him
for an admirable edition of the Book of Deer, printed for the Spalding
Club, to which he has prefixed an elaborate preface. Chapters IV. and V.
of this preface on Celtic polity and on the early Scottish Church are
essays of singular ability, and full of acute and valuable suggestive
matter.
In 1872 the late Bishop of Brechin published his ‘Kalendars of Scottish
Saints, with personal notices of those of Alba, Laudonia, and
Strathclyde: an attempt to fix the districts of their several missions
and the churches where they were chiefly had in remembrance.’ It is a
very useful compilation, and may be referred to for the churches
dedicated to the various founders of the early churches mentioned in
this work. It is only necessary to add that in 1874 Dr. Reeves’s
valuable edition of Adamnan’s Life of St. Columba was, with his consent,
published in the series of Scottish Historians, with a translation of
the Life by the late Bishop of Brechin; and that in the same year there
appeared in the same series an edition by him of the Lives of St. Ninian
and St. Kentigern, with translations, introduction, and notes.
Such is a short view of what has already been done for the history of
the early Celtic Church of Scotland by historians of this class. The
author of the present work is fully conscious of the imperfect manner in
which he has executed the task he set before himself; but, without
claiming to possess the same qualities in an equal degree, he has at
least endeavoured to perform it in the same spirit, and takes this
opportunity of acknowledging the extent to which he has freely availed
himself of their labours. He has especially to acknowledge the valuable
aid given him by W. Maunsell Hennessey, Esq., of the Public Record
Office, Dublin, in enabling him to enrich his work with a translation of
the Old Irish Life of St. Columba, by that eminent Irish scholar, which
will be found in the appendix; and he has also to thank John Taylor
Brown, Esq., and Felix Skene, Esq., for a careful revision of the
proof-sheets of this work.
EDINBURGH, 27 INVERLEITH ROW,
_14th April 1877_.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
-------
BOOK II.
_CHURCH AND CULTURE._
CHAPTER I.
THE CHURCHES IN THE WEST.
PAGE
Early notices of the British Church 1
Church of Saint Ninian 2
Mission of Saint Columbanus to Gaul 6
Controversy regarding Easter 7
Three orders of Saints in the early Irish Church; Secular,
Monastic, and Eremitical 12
The Church of Saint Patrick 14
Collegiate Churches of Seven Bishops 24
Church of the Southern Picts 26
Early Dalriadic Church 33
Church south of the Firths of Forth and Clyde 35
Apostasy of early Churches 39
CHAPTER II.
THE MONASTIC CHURCH IN IRELAND.
The second order of Catholic Presbyters 41
The entire Church monastic. Relative position of Bishops and
Presbyters 42
The Presbyter-abbot 44
Monastic character of the Church derived from Gaul 45
Monachism reached the Irish Church through two different
channels 45
First channel through the monastery of Candida Casa, or
Whithern, in Galloway 46
Second channel through Bretagne and Wales 49
The school of Clonard 50
The Twelve Apostles of Ireland 51
Saint Columba one of the twelve 52
A.D. 545. Founds the monastery of Derry 53
A.D. 558. Foundation of Bangor 55
The primitive Irish monastery 57
The Monastic family 61
Island monasteries 62
Monasteries were Christian colonies 63
Privilege of sanctuary 65
Law of succession to the abbacy 66
The right of the church from the tribe 71
The right of the tribe from the church 72
Influence of the church 73
Monasteries were seminaries of instruction 75
Early churches founded in the Western Isles 76
Mission of Saint Columba to Britain 78
CHAPTER III.
THE MONASTIC CHURCH IN IONA.
A.D. 563. St. Columba crosses from Ireland to Britain with
twelve followers 85
Founds a monastery in Iona 88
Description of the island 88
Character of the Columban Church 93
Site of the original wooden monastery 95
Constitution of the monastery 101
St. Columba’s labours among the Picts 104
A.D. 565. Converts King Brude 105
Character of the paganism of the Scots and Picts 108
Proceedings of St. Columba in converting the northern Picts 119
A.D. 574. St. Columba inaugurates King Aidan and attends the
assembly of Drumceatt 122
CHAPTER IV.
THE FAMILY OF IONA.
What St. Columba had accomplished in twelve years; and
meaning of the expression ‘Family of Iona’ 127
Monasteries founded by him in the islands 128
Monasteries founded during his life by others in the islands 133
Monasteries founded by Columba and others among the northern
Picts 134
A.D. 584-597. Monasteries founded by Columba among the
southern Picts 135
Visit of Saint Columba to Ireland 138
Last day of his life 138
Character of Saint Columba 143
Primacy of Iona and successors of St. Columba 148
A.D. 597-599. Baithene, son of Brendan 149
A.D. 599-605. Laisren, son of Feradhach 150
A.D. 605-623. Fergna Brit, son of Failbhe 151
A.D. 623-652. Segine, son of Fiachna 154
A.D. 634. Extension of Columban Church to Northumbria 154
A.D. 634. Church of the southern Scots of Ireland conforms
to Rome 159
A.D. 652-657. Suibhne, son of Cuirtri 163
A.D. 657-669. Cummene Ailbhe, son of Ernan 163
A.D. 664. Termination of the Columban Church in Northumbria 164
A.D. 669-679. Failbhe, son of Pipan 168
A.D. 673. Foundation of church of Applecross by Maelrubha 169
A.D. 679-704. Adamnan, son of Ronan 170
A.D. 686. First mission to Northumbria 170
Adamnan repairs the monastery of Iona 171
A.D. 688. Second mission to Northumbria 172
A.D. 692. Synod of Tara. The northern Scots, with the
exception of the Columban monasteries, conform to Rome 173
A.D. 704-717. Schism at Iona after the death of Adamnan 175
A.D. 717. Expulsion of the Columban monks from the kingdom
of the Picts 177
CHAPTER V.
THE CHURCHES OF CUMBRIA AND LOTHIAN.
A.D. 573. Battle of Ardderyd. Rydderch Hael becomes king of
Strathclyde 179
Oldest account of birth of Kentigern 180
Jocelyn’s account of his birth 181
Anachronism in connecting St. Servanus with St. Kentigern 184
Earlier notices of Kentigern 185
Kentigern driven to Wales 186
Kentigern founds the monastery of Llanelwy in Wales 188
A.D. 573. Rydderch Hael becomes king of Cumbria and recalls
Kentigern 190
Kentigern fixes his see first at Hoddam 191
Mission of Kentigern in Galloway, Alban, and Orkneys 192
Meeting of Kentigern and Columba 194
Death of Kentigern 196
A.D. 627. Conversion of the Angles to Christianity 198
The Monasteries in Lothian 200
Saint Cudberct or Cuthbert 201
Irish Life of St. Cuthbert 203
A.D. 651-661. Cudberct’s life in the monastery of Melrose 206
A.D. 661. Cudberct becomes prior of Melrose 208
A.D. 664. Cudberct goes to Lindisfarne 209
A.D. 669-678. St. Wilfrid, bishop over all the dominions of
King Osuiu, and founds church of Hexham, which he
dedicates to St. Andrew 210
A.D. 670. Cudberct withdraws to the Farne island 211
A.D. 684. Cudberct becomes bishop of Lindisfarne 213
A.D. 686. Cudberct resigns the bishopric and retires to
Farne island 214
A.D. 687. Death of Cudberct 214
A.D. 698. Relics of Cudberct enshrined 218
A.D. 688. Strathclyde Britons conform to Rome 219
A.D. 705-709. Wilfrid founds chapels at Hexham, dedicated to
St. Michael and St. Mary 220
A.D. 709-731. Relics of St. Andrew brought to Hexham by Acca 222
Monastery of Balthere at Tyninghame 223
Anglic bishopric of Whithern, founded about A.D. 730, and
comes to an end about A.D. 803 224
CHAPTER VI.
THE SECULAR CLERGY AND THE CULDEES.
No appearance of the name of Culdee till after the expulsion
of Columban monks 226
Monastic Church affected by two opposite influences 227
First by secular clergy 227
Legend of Bonifacius 229
Legend of Fergusianus 232
Churches dedicated to St. Peter 233
Second influence: the Anchoretical life 233
Anchorites called _Deicolæ_ or God-worshippers 237
Anchorites called the people of God 239
A.D. 747. Order of Secular Canons instituted 241
_Deicolæ_ brought under canonical rule 242
_Deicolæ_ in the Saxon Church 243
Anchoretical life in Ireland and Scotland 245
Anchorites called _Deoraidh De_, or God’s pilgrims 247
The third order of Irish Saints—Eremitical 248
_Deicolæ_ termed in Ireland _Ceile De_ 250
_Deicolæ_ and _Ceile De_ show the same characteristics 252
_Ceile De_ brought under the canonical rule 254
_Ceile De_ called _Keledei_ in Scotland, and first appear in
territory of the southern Picts 255
Legend of St. Servanus 255
Servanus introduces _Keledei_, who are hermits 258
_Keledei_ of Glasgow, who were solitary clerics 259
Legends connected with the foundation of St. Andrews 261
Older legend belongs to foundation of monastery in sixth
century 266
Columban monasteries among the Picts fell into the hands of
laymen 268
Second legend belongs to later foundation, to which relics
of St. Andrew were brought 271
_Keledei_ of St. Andrews originally hermits 275
Canonical rule brought into Scotland, and _Keledei_ become
canons 275
Conclusion as to origin of the Culdees 276
CHAPTER VII.
THE COÄRBS OF COLUMCILLE.
A.D. 717-772. Schism still exists in Iona 278
Two parties with rival abbots 279
Two missionaries, St. Modan and St. Ronan, in connection
with Roman party 282
A.D. 726. An Anchorite becomes abbot of Iona 283
The term _Comhorba_ or Coärb applied to abbots of Columban
monasteries 285
A.D. 772-801. Breasal, son of Seghine, sole abbot of Iona 288
A.D. 794. First appearance of Danish pirates, and Iona
repeatedly ravaged by them 290
A.D. 801-802. Connachtach, abbot of Iona 290
A.D. 802-814. Cellach, son of Congal, abbot of Iona 291
A.D. 802-807. Remains of St. Columba enshrined 292
A.D. 814-831. Diarmaid, abbot of Iona 297
Monastery rebuilt with stone 297
Shrine of St. Columba placed in stone monastery 300
A.D. 825. Martyrdom of St. Blathmac protecting the shrine 300
A.D. 831-854. Innrechtach ua Finachta, abbot of Iona 306
A.D. 850-865. Tuathal, son of Artguso, first bishop of
Fortrenn and abbot of Dunkeld 307
Cellach, son of Aillelo, abbot of Kildare and of Iona 307
A.D. 865-908. Primacy transferred to Abernethy, where three
elections of bishops take place 310
Legend of St. Adrian 311
A.D. 878. Shrine and relics of St. Columba taken to Ireland 317
CHAPTER VIII.
THE SCOTTISH CHURCH.
A.D. 878-889. First appearance of the name ‘The Scottish
Church’ when freed from servitude under Pictish law 320
A.D. 908. Primacy transferred to St. Andrews. Cellach first
bishop of Alban 323
A.D. 921. Introduction of canonical rule of the Culdees 324
Fothad, son of Bran, second bishop of Alban 327
A.D. 955-963. Malisius bishop of Alban 329
A.D. 963-970. Maelbrigde bishop of Alban 330
A.D. 970-995. Cellach, son of Ferdalaig, bishop of Alban 331
Iona ravaged by Danes; shrine of St. Columba transferred to
Down 332
A.D. 1025-1028. Alwynus bishop of Alban 336
Lay abbots of Dunkeld 337
Hereditary succession in benefices 338
Church offices held by laymen, and retained by their heirs 338
A.D. 1028-1055. Maelduin bishop of Alban 343
A.D. 1055-1059. Tuthald bishop of Alban 344
A.D. 1059-1093. Fothad last bishop of Alban 344
Character of Queen Margaret, and her reforms in the church 344
Anchorites at this time 351
Queen Margaret rebuilds the monastery of Iona 352
A.D. 1093-1107. After death of Fothad no bishop for fourteen
years 354
_Keledei_ of St. Andrews 356
The _Cele De_ of Iona 360
CHAPTER IX.
EXTINCTION OF THE OLD CELTIC CHURCH IN SCOTLAND.
Causes which brought the Celtic Church to an end 365
A.D. 1093-1107. See of St. Andrews remains vacant, and
churches founded in Lothian only 366
A.D. 1107. Turgot appointed bishop of St. Andrews, and the
sees of Moray and Dunkeld created 368
Establishment of the bishopric of Moray 368
Establishment of the bishopric of Dunkeld 370
Rights of _Keledei_ pass to St. Andrews 372
Canons-regular introduced into Scotland 374
Diocese of Glasgow restored by Earl David 375
Bishoprics and monasteries founded by King David 376
Establishment of bishopric of Ross 377
Establishment of bishopric of Aberdeen 378
Monasteries of Deer and Turriff 380
Establishment of bishopric of Caithness 382
The communities of _Keledei_ superseded by regular canons 384
Suppression of _Keledei_ of St. Andrews 384
Suppression of _Keledei_ of Lochleven 388
Suppression of _Keledei_ of Monimusk 389
Monastic orders of Church of Rome introduced 392
Columban abbacies or _Abthens_ in possession of lay abbots 393
Establishment of bishoprics of Dunblane and Brechin 395
Bishoprics of Brechin and Dunblane formed from old see of
Abernethy 397
Suppression of _Keledei_ of Abernethy 398
Failure of Celtic Church of Brechin 400
Failure of Celtic Church in bishopric of Dunblane 402
Failure of Celtic Church in Bishopric of Dunkeld 405
Formation of diocese of Argyll or Lismore 408
Condition of Columban Church of Kilmun 410
Condition of Columban Church of Applecross 411
State of Celtic monastery of Iona 412
A.D. 1203. Foundation of Benedictine abbey and nunnery at
Iona, and disappearance of Celtic community 415
Remains of old Celtic Church 417
CHAPTER X.
LEARNING AND LANGUAGE.
Character of the Irish Monastic Church for learning 419
Resorted to by foreign students 420
Iona as a school of learning 421
Literature of the Monastic Church 422
The _Scribhnidh_, or scribes in the monasteries 423
The Book of Armagh 423
Hagiology of the Irish Church 425
Analysis of the Lives of St. Patrick 427
Lives of St. Bridget 443
Hagiology of the Scottish Church 444
Bearing of the Church on the education of the people 444
The _Ferleiginn_, or lector 444
The Scolocs 446
Influence of the Church on literature and language 448
Art of writing introduced 448
Spoken dialects of Irish 450
Peculiarities of Irish dialects 451
Written Irish 452
Scotch Gaelic 453
Origin of Scotch Gaelic 454
A written language introduced by Scottish monks 457
Gaelic termed Scottish, and Lowland Scotch, English 459
A.D. 1478-1560. Period of neglected education and no
learning 461
After 1520 Scotch Gaelic called Irish, and the name Scotch
passes over to Lowland Scotch 462
After Reformation Scotch Gaelic becomes a written language 463
APPENDIX.
I.
The old Irish Life of St. Columba; being a discourse on his
Life and Character delivered to the Brethren on his
Festival. Translated from the original Irish text by W.
Maunsell Hennessey, Esq., M.R.I.A. 467
II.
The Rule of St. Columba 508
III.
Catalogue of Religious Houses at the end of the Chronicle of
Henry of Silgrave, c. A.D. 1272, so far as it relates to
Scotland 509
ILLUSTRATIVE MAPS.
Map of Iona, showing site of the monasteries _to face page_ 100
Map illustrating history of the Monastic ” 178
Church prior to eighth century
Map illustrating state of the Church in the ” 418
reign of David I.
BOOK II.
_CHURCH AND CULTURE._
---
CHAPTER I.
THE CHURCHES IN THE WEST.
[Sidenote: Early notices of the British Church.]
In endeavouring to form a just conception of the history and
characteristics of the early Celtic Churches of the British Isles, it is
necessary at the very outset to discriminate between three consecutive
periods, which are strongly contrasted. The first is that period which
preceded the withdrawal of the Roman troops from Britain and the
termination of the civil government of the Roman province there in the
beginning of the fifth century; the second, the period of isolation
which followed, when the invasion of the Roman provinces in Gaul and
Britain by the Barbarians interposed a barrier of paganism between the
churches of Britain and the Continent, and for the time cut off all
communication between them; and the third, that which followed the
renewal of that intercourse, when they again came into contact in the
end of the sixth century.
During the Roman occupation of Britain the Christian religion had
unquestionably made its way under their auspices into the island, and
the Roman province in Britain was, in this respect, no exception to the
other provinces of the empire. It can hardly be doubted that, as early
as the second century of their occupation, a Christian Church had been
established within its limits, and there were even reports that it had
penetrated to regions beyond it. It is unnecessary for the purpose of
this work, and it would be out of place here, to enter into any inquiry
as to the actual period and history of the introduction of the Christian
Church into the British province, a subject which has been fully
discussed by other writers.[1] Our more immediate concern is with the
churches founded beyond its limits, among those tribes termed by the
Roman writers Barbarians, in opposition to the provincial Britons.
Suffice it to say that during the Roman occupation the Christian Church
in Britain was a part of the Church of the empire. It was more
immediately connected with that of Gaul, but it acknowledged Rome as its
head, from whom its mission was considered to be derived, and it
presented no features of difference from the Roman Church in the other
western provinces.
[Sidenote: Church of Saint Ninian.]
Towards the end of the Roman occupation the Christian Church seems to
have penetrated in two directions beyond the limits of the province, but
in other respects to have possessed the same character. During that
troublous time when the province was assailed by the barbarians on the
north and west, and its actual boundary had been drawn back from its
nominal limits, a Christian Church was established in the district
extending along the north shore of the Solway Firth, where Ptolemy had
placed the tribe of the Novantæ, its principal seat being at one of
their towns situated on the west side of Wigtown Bay, and termed by him
‘Leukopibia.’ The fact is reported by Bede as one well known to have
taken place. The missionary was Ninian, a bishop of the nation of the
Britons, who had been trained at Rome in the doctrine and discipline of
the western Church, and who built at Leukopibia a church of stone, which
was vulgarly called Candida Casa, and dedicated to St. Martin of
Tours.[2] This is the earliest account we have of him, and shows very
plainly both his relation to Rome as the source of his mission and his
connection with the Church of Gaul. It is probable that Ailred of
Rievaulx, in his Life of Ninian, written in the twelfth century, but
derived from older materials, repeats a true fact when he says that
Ninian heard of the death of Martin while he was erecting this church;
and this fixes the date of its foundation at the year 397. From Bede’s
statement we learn that the object of his mission seems to have been the
conversion of the Pictish nation, with the view probably of arresting,
or at least mitigating, their attacks upon the provincial Britons. He
founded his church of Candida Casa among the people occupying the
district on the north side of the Solway Firth, extending from the Nith
to the Irish Channel, who afterwards appear as the Picts of Galloway;
and we are told that through his preaching the Southern Picts, extending
as far north as the great mountain range of the Grampians, abandoned
their idolatrous worship and received the true faith.
While the Christian Church had thus been extended into the southern
province of the Pictish nation, it appears to have by this time
penetrated also to the Scots of Ireland. If the old Irish Life of Ninian
can be trusted, he is said to have left Britain and spent the last years
of his life in Ireland, where he founded a church in Leinster called
Cluain Conaire, and it is certain that he was commemorated there on the
16th of September under the name of Monenn.[3] The date of Ninian’s
death is not recorded. It has been almost uniformly stated by modern
writers to have taken place on the 16th September in the year 432, and
has been given by some on the authority of Bede, by others on that of
Ailred; but no such date is to be found in either writer, and this
supposed year of his death rests upon no authority whatever.
The Roman dominion in Britain came to an end in 410, when the troops
were withdrawn from the province and the provincial cities left to
protect themselves. Roman Britain thus ceased, to all intents and
purposes, to form part of the empire; her intercourse with the Continent
was almost entirely cut off by the incursions of the barbarian tribes
into Roman Gaul; and, with the exception of a few contemporary notices
of the Church during some years after the termination of the Roman
dominion, all is silence for a century and a half, till it is broken in
the succeeding century by the querulous voice of Gildas. The few facts
which we learn from contemporary sources are these: that in the year 429
the churches of Britain had been corrupted by the ‘Pelagian Agricola,
son of the Pelagian bishop Severianus,’ who had introduced the Pelagian
heresy among them to some extent;[4] that the orthodox clergy
communicated the fact to the Gallican bishops, by whom a synod was held,
when it was resolved to send Germanus bishop of Auxerre, and Lupus
bishop of Troyes, to Britain; and that, at the instance of Palladius the
deacon, Germanus received a mission from Celestine, bishop of Rome, to
bring back to the Catholic faith the Britons tainted with this
heresy.[5] Two years after, in 431, according to the same chronicler,
Pope Celestine ordained Palladius a bishop, and sent him to the
Christian Scots of Ireland as their first bishop; and thus, ‘having
ordained a bishop to the Scots, while he endeavoured to preserve Roman
Britain as Catholic, he made the barbarian island Christian,’[6] in this
sense at least that he had formed into a regular church those of its
inhabitants who had already become Christian. Whether the Christian
religion had been introduced into Ireland by the preaching of Ninian, or
whether it had existed there from even an earlier period, there are now
no materials to indicate;[7] but the mission of Palladius seems to imply
that Ninian was at this time dead.
Such are the few facts which we have from contemporary sources at this
time; and all other accounts which we possess of the church among the
barbarians are derived from tradition or legend, which will be dealt
with in its proper place. These few isolated statements show us a church
in Roman Britain, which had been extended, in one direction, into the
districts north of the Roman wall, till arrested by the great mountain
barrier separating the northern from the southern Picts, and, in
another, to the island of Ireland, then the only country inhabited by
the people called Scots. We find it in close connection with the
Gallican Church, and regarding the Patriarch of Rome as the head of the
Western Church and the source of ecclesiastical authority and mission.
With the exception of the temporary prevalence of the Pelagian heresy in
Britain, we can discover no trace of any divergence between them in
doctrine or practice.[8] There now follows a long period of utter
darkness, during which all connection with the Continent was broken off;
and we learn nothing further regarding the churches beyond the western
limits of the empire, till the church of the extreme west came into
contact with that of Gaul towards the end of the sixth century.
[Sidenote: Mission of Saint Columbanus to Gaul.]
In the year 590 the ecclesiastical world in Gaul, in which the Franks
and Burgundians were already settled, was startled by the sudden
appearance of a small band of missionaries on her shores. They were
thirteen in number—a leader with twelve followers. Their outward
appearance was strange and striking. They were clothed in a garment of
coarse texture made of wool, and of the natural colour of the material,
under which was a white tunic. They were tonsured, but in a different
manner from the Gaulish ecclesiastics. Their heads were shaved in front
from ear to ear, the anterior half of the head being made bare, while
their hair flowed down naturally and unchecked from the back of the
head. They had each a pilgrim’s staff, a leathern water-bottle and a
wallet, and a case containing some relics. They spoke among themselves a
foreign language, resembling in sound the dialect of Armorica, but they
conversed readily in Latin with those who understood that language.[9]
When asked who they were and whence they came, they replied,—‘We are
Irish, dwelling at the very ends of the earth. We be men who receive
naught beyond the doctrine of the evangelists and apostles. The Catholic
faith, as it was first delivered by the successors of the holy apostles,
is still maintained among us with unchanged fidelity;’ and their leader
gave the following account of himself,—‘I am a Scottish pilgrim, and my
speech and actions correspond to my name, which is in Hebrew Jonah, in
Greek Peristera, and in Latin Columba, a dove.’[10] In this guise they
appeared before the people, addressing them everywhere with the whole
power of their native eloquence. Some learned the language of the
country. The rest employed an interpreter when they preached before the
laity. To ecclesiastics they spoke the common language of the Latin
Church. Their leader, Columbanus, was a man of commanding presence and
powerful eloquence, and endowed with a determination of character and
intensity of purpose which influenced, either favourably or the reverse,
every one with whom he came in contact. From the kings he soon obtained
permission to settle in their territories and to erect monasteries; and
two monastic establishments soon arose within the recesses of the Vosges
mountains, which now divide Alsace from France—those of Luxeuil and
Fontaines, to which the youth of the country flocked in numbers for
instruction, or for training as monks.
[Sidenote: Controversy regarding Easter.]
They had not been long established there when the Gaulish clergy became
aware that in the new monasteries the festival of Easter was
occasionally celebrated on a different Sunday from that observed by the
Roman Church, there being occasionally an interval of a week between the
two, and sometimes even the violent discrepancy of an entire month. This
arose from a difference in the mode of calculating the Sunday on which
Easter ought to fall, both in regard to the week within which it ought
to be celebrated and the cycle of years by which the month was to be
determined. By the law of Moses the passover was to be slain on the
fourteenth day of the first month of the year, in the evening (Exod.
xii. 2, 3, 6), and the children of Israel were further directed to eat
unleavened bread seven days:—‘In the first month, on the fourteenth day
of the month, at even, ye shall eat unleavened bread, until the
one-and-twentieth day of the month’ (__Ib.__ xii. 18). It was further
declared that the month in which the fourteenth day or the full moon
fell first after the vernal equinox was to be their first month. In
applying this rule to the Christian Easter, the Eastern Church, in the
main, adopted it literally, and celebrated Easter on the same day as the
Jewish Passover, on whatever day of the week it might fall. The Western
Church, however, held that, as our Saviour had risen from the dead on
the first day of the week after the Passover, the festival of Easter
should be celebrated on the Sunday between the fourteenth and the
twentieth day of the moon on the first month of the Jewish lunar year.
In order to bring the lunar date into connection with the solar year so
as to fix the day of the month on which Easter was to be kept, various
cycles were framed by the Church; till at length the Easter cycle of
nineteen years was introduced at Alexandria by Anatolius, bishop of
Laodicea, in 270, by which Easter was celebrated on the Sunday falling
on the fourteenth day of the moon, or between that day and the twentieth
on a cycle of nineteen years. In the Western Church, however, the time
for celebrating Easter was calculated on a cycle of eighty-four years,
which was improved by Sulpicius Severus in 410, and continued to be used
till 457, when a longer cycle of 532 years was introduced by Victorius
of Aquitaine, based upon the cycle of nineteen years; and in the year
525 the computation was finally fixed by Dionysius Exiguus on the cycle
of nineteen years. By this time it was likewise held that, as the
Passover was slain on the evening of the fourteenth day of the moon,
according to the Jewish system of reckoning the days from evening to
evening, the fifteenth, and not the fourteenth, ought to be considered
as the first day of unleavened bread, and consequently Easter ought to
fall on the Sunday between the fifteenth and twenty-first days of the
moon; and by a canon of the fourth council of Orleans, held in the year
541, it was directed that the Easter festival should be observed by all
at the same time, according to the tables of Victorius.[11]
These changes in the mode of computation in the Western Church took
place after the connection between Britain and the rest of the empire
had ceased, and when the British Churches were left in a state of
isolation. They therefore still retained the older mode of computation,
which had been once common to the whole Western Church; and thus it came
that when Columbanus went on his mission to Gaul he found the
continental Churches celebrating the festival of Easter on the Sunday
between the fifteenth and twenty-first days of the moon, calculated on
the cycle of nineteen years, while the British and Irish Churches
celebrated the same festival on the Sunday between the fourteenth and
twentieth days of the moon, calculated according to the cycle of
eighty-four years; the difference in the days of the moon causing an
occasional divergence of a week, and that of the cycles a possible
divergence of a month.[12] The prelates of Gaul seem to have eagerly
caught at a ground upon which they could charge these strange
missionaries, who had taken such a hold upon the country, with following
practices at variance with the universal Church, and thus pursuing a
schismatical course. A council was summoned for the purpose of
considering what steps they ought to take with regard to these
strangers; but Columbanus, though probably included in the summons,
contented himself by sending a letter, which is still extant, addressed
to ‘our holy lords and fathers or brethren in Christ, the bishops,
presbyters, and other orders of Holy Church,’[13] in which he vindicates
the mode of keeping Easter which he had received from his fathers,
according to the cycle of eighty-four years, refers to Anatolius as
having been commended by Eusebius and St. Jerome, and denounces the
change made by Victorius as an innovation. He claimed his right to
follow the course derived from his fathers, and remonstrated with them
for endeavouring to trouble him on such a point. What the result of this
synod was we do not know; but it was followed by an appeal by Columbanus
to the Pope himself. To Columbanus Rome was still the traditional Rome
of the fourth and fifth centuries. Since then the Irish Church had not
come into contact with her, and inherited the same feelings of regard
and deference with which the early church had regarded her before the
period of their isolation, and while she was still to them the
acknowledged head of the churches in the western provinces of the Roman
empire. In this letter, which also is extant, he addressed Boniface IV.
as ‘the holy lord and[14] Apostolic Father in Christ, the Pope.’ He
tells him that he had long desired to visit in spirit and confer ‘with
those who preside in the apostolic chair, the most beloved prelates over
all the faithful, the most revered fathers by right of apostolic
honour.’ He vindicates the doctrine of his church as no way differing
from that of other orthodox churches, but claims to be regarded ‘as
still in his fatherland, and not bound to accept the rules of these
Gauls; but as placed in the wilderness and, offending no one, to abide
by the rules of his seniors;’ and he appeals to ‘the judgment of the 150
fathers of the Council of Constantinople, who judged that the churches
of God established among the Barbarians should live according to the
laws taught them by their fathers.’ This was the second œcumenical
council held at Constantinople in the year 381. The second canon directs
that the bishops belonging to each diocese shall not interfere with
churches beyond its bounds. It then regulates the jurisdiction of the
great patriarchates, and concludes by declaring that the churches of God
among the Barbarian people—that is, beyond the bounds of the Roman
empire—shall be regulated by the customs of their fathers.[15] The
position which Columbanus took up was substantially this—‘Your
jurisdiction as Bishop of Rome does not extend beyond the limits of the
Roman empire. I am a missionary from a church of God among the
Barbarians, and, though temporarily within the limits of your
territorial jurisdiction, and bound to regard you with respect and
deference, I claim the right to follow the customs of my own church
handed down to us by our fathers.’
It is unnecessary for our purpose to enter further into the life and
doings of Columbanus. They have been referred to here at the very
outset, because it was by his mission that the churches of the extreme
west were again, for the first time, brought into contact with the Roman
Church; and he has left behind him authentic writings which present to
us at once the points of contrast between the two churches, and the
relation they bore to each other, and thus afford us a fixed point from
which to start in our examination of the early history and peculiar
characteristics of these Celtic churches during the dark period of their
isolation, when all intercourse with the Continent was cut off.
[Sidenote: Three Orders of Saints in early Irish Church; Secular,
Monastic, and Eremitical.]
There are two ancient documents, both belonging to the eighth century,
which afford us, at the outset, a view of the characteristic features of
the early Irish Church. One is a ‘Catalogue of the Saints of Ireland
according to their different periods,’ in which they are arranged in
three classes corresponding to three periods of the church;[16] and the
other is the Litany of Angus the Culdee, in which he invokes the saints
of the early church in different groups.[17] The Catalogue of the Saints
proceeds thus:—‘The first order of Catholic saints was in the time of
Patricius; and then they were all bishops, famous and holy and full of
the Holy Ghost; 350 in number, founders of churches. They had one head,
Christ, and one chief, Patricius; they observed one mass,[18] one
celebration, one tonsure from ear to ear. They celebrated one Easter, on
the fourteenth moon after the vernal equinox, and what was
excommunicated by one church, all excommunicated. They rejected not the
services and society of women,’ or as another MS. has it, ‘they excluded
from the churches neither laymen nor women; because, founded on the rock
Christ, they feared not the blast of temptation. This order of saints
continued for four reigns.[19] All these bishops were sprung from the
Romans, and Franks, and Britons, and Scots. The second order was of
Catholic Presbyters. For in this order there were few bishops and many
presbyters, in number three hundred. They had one head, our Lord; they
celebrated different masses,[20] and had different rules, one Easter on
the fourteenth moon after the equinox, one tonsure from ear to ear; they
refused the services of women, separating them from the monasteries.
This order has hitherto lasted for four reigns.[21] They received a mass
from Bishop David, and Gillas and Docus, the Britons.[22] The third
order of Saints was of this sort. They were holy presbyters, and a few
bishops; one hundred in number; who dwelt in desert places, and lived on
herbs and water, and the alms; they shunned private property,’ or, as
the other MS. has it, ‘they despised all earthly things, and wholly
avoided all whispering and backbiting; they had different rules and
masses, and different tonsures, for some had the coronal and others the
hair (behind); and a different Paschal festival. For some celebrated the
Resurrection on the fourteenth moon, or on the sixteenth with hard
intentions. These lived during four reigns, and continued to that great
mortality’[23] in the year 666. This document presents us with a short
picture of the church prior to the year 666, and it is hardly possible
to mistake its leading characteristic features during each of the three
periods. In the first period we find churches and a secular clergy. In
the second, the churches are superseded by monasteries, and we find a
regular or monastic clergy; and in the third, we see an eremitical
clergy living in solitary places. But while this seems to indicate, and
may to some extent have arisen from, a deepening asceticism—the clergy
passing from a life under the ordinary canonical law of the church,
through the discipline and strict rule of monastic observances, to a
solitary life of privation and self-denial in what was called the
_Desert_—there were probably causes connected both with the social state
of the wild people among whom they exercised their clerical functions
and with the result of their labours, which led to the church being
reconstructed from time to time on a different basis, and thus
presenting a different outward aspect. The distinction in order between
the bishop and the presbyter, however, seems to have been preserved
throughout, though their relation to each other, in respect to numbers
and jurisdiction, varied at different periods.
[Sidenote: The Church of Saint Patrick.]
The first order of Saints representing the Church during the first
period had Christ for their head, and St. Patrick for their leader or
chief. They claimed therefore to be peculiarly the Church of Saint
Patrick. And here we are struck at the outset by the fact that there is
no mention whatever of the mission of Palladius; and if we turn to the
few notices of the early Irish Church in contemporary writers of other
countries, we find the equally striking contrast that, while they record
the mission of Palladius, they make no mention of Patrick. The life of
Patrick, as usually told and accepted in history, is derived in the main
from his acts, as contained in Lives of the Saint compiled at different
times ranging from the eighth to the twelfth century. Seven of these
lives were published by Colgan in his _Trias Thaumaturga_, and he has
attempted to assign fixed dates to those which are anonymous; but it is
obvious that they are, to a large extent, composed of legendary and
traditional matter. The Book of Armagh, which was compiled about the
year 807,[24] presents us with two older narratives. One was compiled by
Muirchu Maccumachtheni, or the son of Cogitosus, at the suggestion of
Aedh, bishop of Sletty, who died in 698; the other by Tirechan, who is
believed to be the author of the Catalogue of the Saints. Both,
therefore, belong to the same period. Muirchu’s life is imperfect, as we
only possess a short summary of the first part;[25] and we can gather
from it that Patrick had gone to Rome to prepare for his mission, but
went no farther than Gaul, as he there met the disciples of Palladius,
at a place called Ebmoria, who reported the death of Palladius, who,
having failed in his mission, had died on his return to Rome in the
territory of the Britons; and that Patrick then received the episcopal
degree from Matho the holy king and bishop, and proceeded on his mission
to Ireland.[26] Tirechan’s account is more precise. He says, ‘In the
xiii. year of Theodosius the emperor, Patricius the bishop was sent by
Bishop Celestine, Pope of Rome, for the instruction of the Irish; which
Celestine was the forty-second bishop of the apostolic see of the city
of Rome after Peter. Palladius the Bishop was the first sent, who is
otherwise called Patricius, and suffered martyrdom among the Scots, as
the ancient saints relate. Then the second Patricius was sent by an
angel of God, named Victor, and by Pope Celestine, by whose means all
Ireland believed, and who baptized almost all the inhabitants.’[27] This
account of his mission also appears in all the Irish Annals, and is
apparently taken from the older chronicle of Marianus Scotus, who died
in the year 1084, and who gives it thus:—‘In the eighth year of
Theodosius, Bassus and Antiochus being consuls, Palladius, being
ordained by Pope Celestine, was sent as first bishop to the Scots
believing in Christ. After him St. Patricius, a Briton by birth, was
consecrated by St. Celestine the Pope, and sent to the archiepiscopate
of Ireland. There during sixty years, preaching with signs and miracles,
he converted the whole island of Ireland to the faith.’[28] As Pope
Celestine died in July 432, this supposed mission of Patrick must have
taken place within a year at least of that of Palladius; and while
Probus records the latter alone, without any hint of its sudden
termination, we are asked to believe that it had proved at once
unsuccessful, and that Palladius having either suffered martyrdom or
died within the year, a second mission, headed by Patrick, was sent
either directly by or during the life of Pope Celestine. If this be so,
if it be true that the mission of Palladius effected nothing and came to
an end either by his martyrdom or flight within a year, and that
Patrick’s mission, which succeeded it, was followed by the conversion of
the whole island, it seems strange that nothing should have been known
on the Continent at the time of this great event, and that it should be
noticed by no contemporary author. Not a single writer prior to the
eighth century mentions it; and even Bede, who quotes the passage in
Probus recording the mission of Palladius, and mentions those of Ninian
and Columba, is silent as to that of Patrick. Columbanus, and the other
missionaries from Ireland who followed him, seem to have told their
foreign disciples nothing about him, and in the writings of the former
which have been preserved,—in his letters to the Popes and the Gaulish
clergy, and in his sermons to his monks,—the name of Patrick, the great
founder of his church, never appears. We should be tempted to conclude,
as many have done, that the account of Patrick and of his mission was
entirely mythical, and that neither the one nor the other had any real
existence, were it not that, when we turn to the writings of two of the
contemporaries of Columbanus at home, we do find an occasional mention
of Patrick at a sufficiently early date to leave no reasonable doubt of
his existence, and that two documents are attributed to him which may
fairly be accepted as genuine. The oldest authentic notice of Patrick
occurs in a letter which is still extant, written by Cummian to
Segienus, abbot of Iona, in the year 634, regarding the proper time for
keeping Easter. In it he refers to the cycle ‘introduced into use by our
pope, Saint Patricius;’[29] and Adamnan, writing in the end of the
seventh century, in the second preface to his Life of Columba mentions
‘Maucta, a pilgrim from Britain, a holy man, a disciple of Saint
Patricius the bishop.’[30] These early notices, though few in number,
seem sufficient to prove his existence; but if we are to receive as
genuine documents his Confession and the Epistle to Coroticus, as
undoubtedly we ought, they not only afford conclusive evidence of his
own existence and the reality of his mission, but give us his own
account of the leading particulars of his life.[31] The information he
gives us may be shortly stated thus:—Patricius was born of Christian
parents and belonged to a Christian people; for he ‘was the son of
Calpornius a deacon, son of the late Potitus a presbyter, who lived in
the village of Bannavem of Tabernia, where he had a small farm.’[32] He
was of gentle birth, his father being also a ‘decurio,’ that is, one of
the council or magistracy of a Roman provincial town.[33] He lived at
this little farm when, in his sixteenth year, he was taken captive and
brought to Hibernia or Ireland with many thousands; and he adds, ‘as we
deserved, for we had forsaken God, and had not kept his commandments,
and were disobedient to our priests, who admonished us for our
salvation.’ He remained six years in slavery in Ireland, where he was
employed tending sheep; and then he escaped in a ship, the sailors of
which were pagans, and after three days reached land, and for
twenty-eight days journeyed through a desert. He was again taken
captive, and remained two months with these people, when on the sixtieth
night he was delivered from their hands. A few years after he was with
his parents, or relations, in the Roman province of Britain,[34] when he
resolved, in consequence of a vision, to leave his native country and
his kindred, and go to Ireland as a missionary to preach the gospel,
which, he says, he was able to accomplish after several years.
Saint Patrick’s narrative of his early life conveys the impression that
he was a simple youth, of an earnest and enthusiastic temperament, who,
in the solitude of his captivity in Ireland, had communed with his own
spirit and been brought under a deep sense of religion; and, when again
restored to his native country and his home, had brooded over the desire
which strong religious conviction creates in many a youth to devote
himself to missionary labour, till he became persuaded that he had
received a divine call. If he was taken captive in his sixteenth year
and remained six years in captivity, he was twenty-two when he escaped,
and was probably now between twenty-five and thirty years old. He had
early been made a deacon,[35] and must at this time have gone to Ireland
probably in priest’s orders; for he tells us that he had lived and
preached among the Irish from his youth up, and given the faith to the
people among whom he dwelt.[36] At the age of forty-five he was
consecrated a bishop, and in his epistle to Coroticus he designates
himself ‘Patricius, a sinner and unlearned, but appointed a bishop in
Ireland.’[37]
It is clear from Patrick’s own account of himself that he was a citizen
of the Roman province in Britain;[38] that his family had been Christian
for at least two generations, and belonged to the aristocracy of a Roman
provincial town, and that the district of Tabernia, in which it was
situated, was exposed to the incursions of the Scots; that he had
laboured among the Irish as a missionary for at least fifteen, if not
twenty, years before he was consecrated a bishop, and it was only
latterly that his labours were crowned with much success. His Confession
appears to have been written towards the end of his life, as he
concludes it by saying that it was written in Ireland, and that this was
his confession before he died;[39] and his epistle was written to
Coroticus while the Franks were still pagan—that is, before their
conversion in the year 496. In his Confession he tells us that through
his ministry clerics had been ordained for this people newly come to the
faith, and that in Hiberio or Ireland ‘those who never had the knowledge
of God, and had hitherto only worshipped unclean idols, have lately
become the people of the Lord, and are called the sons of God. The sons
of the Scoti and the daughters of princes are seen to be monks and
virgins of Christ.’[40] In the epistle to Coroticus he addresses his
‘beloved brethren and children whom he had begotten in such numbers to
Christ.’[41] It is, however, remarkable that he does not in either
document make the slightest allusion to Palladius or his mission, and
this leads certainly to the inference that it had failed and had never
become an efficient and operative episcopal mission in the country.
Patrick’s episcopate must certainly have followed that of Palladius, and
that possibly at no great distance of time; and if he was then
forty-five years of age, this would throw his sixteenth year, when he
was taken captive, to the first decade of the century, when the Roman
province was exposed to the incursions of the Scots, and thus he must
have himself already laboured as a missionary among the Irish people, to
whom Palladius was sent as their first bishop.
Such is the account which Patrick gives of himself in these documents,
which we accept as undoubtedly genuine; and we shall see how, at a later
period, this simple narrative became incrusted with a mass of
traditional, legendary, and fictitious matter, which had gradually
accumulated in the minds of the people, and was brought into shape and
added from time to time to the story of Saint Patrick’s life and labours
by each successive biographer.
Patrick states in his Confession simply that he ordained clerics, but we
are told in the Catalogue of the Saints that ‘they were all bishops,
famous and holy, and full of the Holy Ghost, 350 in number, founders of
churches;’ and this is confirmed by Angus the Culdee, in his Litany,
where he invokes ‘seven times fifty holy bishops, with three hundred
priests, whom Patraic ordained,’ and quotes the verse—
‘Seven times fifty holy cleric bishops[42]
The saint ordained,
With three hundred pure presbyters[43]
Upon whom he conferred orders.’
Upwards of one half of his clergy seem, therefore, to have been bishops,
and he appears to have placed a bishop, consecrated by himself, in each
church which he founded. The difference in order between bishop and
presbyter is here fully recognised; and there was nothing in this very
inconsistent with the state of the primitive church before it became a
territorial church, and its hierarchical arrangements and jurisdiction
were adapted to and modelled upon the civil government of the Roman
empire.[44] In the earlier period of the Christian Church there was,
besides the chief bishop in each city, whose consecration required the
action of at least three bishops, an order of ‘Chorepiscopi,’ or country
bishops,[45] who were consecrated by the chief bishop; and the relative
proportion of bishops and presbyters was very different from what it
afterwards became. We find in the Apostolical Constitutions in the
ordinances of the church of Alexandria that ‘if there should be a place
having a few faithful men in it, before the multitude increase, who
shall be able to make a dedication to pious uses for the bishop to the
extent of twelve men, let them write to the churches round about the
place, in which the multitude of believers are established. If the
bishop whom they shall appoint hath attended to the knowledge and
patience of the love of God, with those with him, let him ordain two
presbyters when he hath examined them, or rather three;’[46] and we are
told that in Asia Minor alone there were upwards of four hundred
bishops.[47] Such a church as this could not have been very unlike the
Irish Church at this period—the relative proportion of bishops and
presbyters much the same; and Patrick seems to have adapted it to the
state of society among the people who were the objects of his mission.
Their social system was one based upon the tribe, and it consisted of a
congeries of small septs united together by no very close tie. Anything
like a territorial church, with a central jurisdiction, was hardly
possible among them. Patrick tells us nothing of the mode in which he
was consecrated a bishop; but the expression in his epistle to
Coroticus, that he was constituted the bishop in Ireland, seems to imply
that he regarded himself as chief bishop for the whole people. He
founded churches wherever he could obtain a grant from the chief of the
sept, and appears to have placed in each _Tuath_ or tribe a bishop,
ordained by himself, who may have had one or more presbyters with him.
It was, in short, a congregational and tribal episcopacy, united by a
federal rather than a territorial tie under regular jurisdiction; and
this is implied by the statement that ‘what was excommunicated by one
church was excommunicated by all.’ During Patrick’s life, he no doubt
exercised a superintendence over the whole; but we do not see any trace
of the metropolitan jurisdiction of the church of Armagh over the rest.
‘All these bishops,’ we are told in the Catalogue of the Saints, ‘were
sprung from the Romans, and Franks, and Britons, and Scots.’ By the
Romans and Britons probably those are meant who belonged to the Roman
province in Britain, and followed Patrick in his mission; by the Franks
those who came from Gaul appear to be intended; and whenever it was
possible, he no doubt appointed a native Scot, and one of the tribe
among whom he founded a church, to be its bishop. The extent to which
the foreign element entered into the clergy of his church may be learnt
from the Litany of Angus, who invokes ‘the Romans in Achudh Galma, in Hy
Echach; the Romans in Letar Erca; the Romans and Cairsech, daughter of
Brocan, in Cill Achudh Dallrach; Cuan, a Roman, in Achill; the Romans in
Cluan Caincumni; and the Romans with Aedan in Cluan Dartada; the Gauls
in Saillidu; the Gauls in Magh Salach; and the Gauls in Achudh Ginain;
the Saxons in Rigar; and the Saxons in Cluan Muicceda; fifty men of the
Britons with Monan, in Lann Leire.’ And, in another tract by Angus the
Culdee on the Mothers of the Saints, he has, ‘Dina, daughter of the king
of the Saxons, was the mother of the ten sons of Bracan, king of
Britain, son of Bracha Meoc: viz. St. Mogoroc of Struthuir; St.
Mochonoc, the pilgrim of Kil Mucraisse and of Gelinnia in the region of
Delbhna Eathra; Dirad of Eadardr uim; Duban of Rinndubhain alithir;
Carenn of Killchairinne; Carpre, the pilgrim of Killchairpre; Isiol
Farannain; Iust in Slemna of Alban; Elloc of Kill Moelloc, near
Lochgarman; Pian of Killphiain in Ossory; Coeman, the pilgrim of Kill
Choeman, in the region of Gesille and elsewhere. She was also mother of
Mobeoc of Gleanngeirg, for he was a son of Brachan, son of Bracha
Meoc.’[48]
The first order, too, ‘rejected not the services and society of women,’
or, according to another MS., ‘they excluded from their churches neither
laymen nor women,’ which indicates their character as secular clergy, in
contradistinction to those under a monastic rule. ‘They celebrated
Easter on the fourteenth moon after the vernal equinox,’ that is, as we
have seen elsewhere, from the fourteenth to the twenty-first day of the
moon; and there appears to have been no difference in this respect
between them and the Church of Rome prior to the year 457. Their clergy
were tonsured; but at this time there were in the Church various forms
of tonsure, and the first form, ‘from ear to ear,’ that is, having the
hair removed from the fore part of the head and leaving it to grow
behind the ears, was also practised in Gaul, from whence it was probably
derived.[49]
Although Patrick alludes to the great numbers he converted, there does
not seem to have been anything like a national adoption of Christianity.
It is remarkable enough that the _Ardri_ or chief king of Ireland
appears to have remained pagan during the entire period of his mission,
and it was not till the year 513 that a Christian monarch ruled in Tara.
Neither did the arrangement by which isolated bishops were placed in
each sept or tribe whose chief or petty king had been converted prove
well calculated to disseminate Christianity through the whole tribe, and
to leaven the entire people with its influence.
[Sidenote: Collegiate Churches of Seven Bishops.]
This appears to have led, towards the end of his life, to the adoption
of a very peculiar sort of Collegiate Church. It consisted in a group of
seven bishops placed together in one church; and they were brought
closer to the tribal system based on the family which prevailed in
Ireland, by these bishops being usually seven brothers selected from one
family in the tribe. We see the germs of something of the kind in
Tirechan’s Annotations, where it is said that towards the end of his
career ‘Patrick passed the Shannon three times, and completed seven
years in the western quarter, and came from the plain of Tochuir to Dulo
Ocheni, and founded seven churches there.’ And again, ‘The seven sons of
Doath—that is Cluain, Findglais and Imsruth, Culcais, Deruthmar, Culcais
and Cennlocho—faithfully made offerings to God and Saint Patrick.’[50]
But Angus the Culdee in his Litany gives us a list of no fewer than one
hundred and fifty-three groups of seven bishops in the same church, all
of whom he invokes. A few of these we can identify sufficiently to show
that they usually consisted of seven brothers living together in one
church, and that they belong to this period. For instance, he invokes
‘the seven bishops of _Tulach na’n Epscop_,’ or Tulach of the Bishops;
and we find in the old Irish Life of St. Bridget, who died in 525, that
on one occasion at Tealagh, in the west of Leinster, ‘pious nobles,
_i.e._ seven bishops, were her guests.’[51] Again he invokes ‘the seven
bishops of Drom Arbelaig;’ and in the Irish Calendar on 15th January we
have ‘seven bishops, sons of Finn, _alias_ Fincrettan of
Druimairbealagh.’ Again he invokes ‘the seven bishops in Tamhnach;’ and
in the Calendars on 21st July we have this notice: ‘The seven bishops of
Tamhnach Buadha, and we find seven bishops, the sons of one father, and
their names and history among the race of Fiacha Suighdhe, son of
Feidhlimidh Reachtmhar, son of Tuathal Teachtmhar.’ Again he invokes
‘the seven bishops of Cluan Emain;’ and we are told in the Life of Saint
Forannan that, after the Council of Drumceatt Columba was met by a large
concourse of ecclesiastics, among whom the descendants of Cennaine, the
aunt of St. Bridget, are alone enumerated, and among these are ‘the
seven bishops of Cluain-Hemain,’ now Clonown, near Athlone, and they are
represented in the Genealogy of the Saints in the Book of Lecan as seven
brethren, the sons of the same mother.[52] Such appear to be in the main
the characteristics of the early Irish Church in this the first period
of its history; and we must now turn to Scotland to see to what extent
they are reflected there.
[Sidenote: Church of the southern Picts.]
The dark interval of a century between the death of Ninian and the
coming of Columba when we find ourselves treading on firm ground, is
thus filled up by Fordun:—
‘In A.D. 430 Pope Celestinus sent Saint Palladius into Scotia, as the
first bishop therein. It is therefore fitting that the Scots should
diligently keep his festival and church commemorations, for by his word
and example he with anxious care taught their nation—that of the Scots
to wit—the orthodox faith, although they had for a long time previously
believed in Christ. Before his arrival, the Scots had, as teachers of
the faith and administrators of the Sacraments, priests only or monks,
following the rite of the primitive church. So he arrived in Scotland
with a great company of clergy in the eleventh year of the reign of King
Eugenius, and the king freely gave him a place of abode where he wanted
one. Moreover, Palladius had as his fellow-worker in preaching and
administering the Sacraments a most holy man, Servanus; who was ordained
bishop and created by Palladius his coadjutor—one worthy of him in all
respects—in order to teach the people the orthodox faith, and with
anxious care perfect the work of the Gospel; for Palladius was not equal
to discharging alone the pastoral duties over so great a nation.’ And
again: ‘The holy bishop Terrananus likewise was a disciple of the
blessed Palladius, who was his godfather and his fostering teacher and
furtherer in all the rudiments of letters and of the faith.’[53] This
statement has been substantially accepted as history by all historians
of the Church in Scotland; but when we examine the grounds on which it
rests, we shall see reason to doubt whether Palladius ever was in
Scotland, and to place Servanus at a much later period. Terrananus alone
appears to have any real claim to belong to this period.
The only real information we possess as to the acts of Palladius, in
addition to the short notice of his mission given us by the contemporary
chronicler Prosper of Aquitaine, is derived from the Lives of St.
Patrick; and we shall see how this statement of Palladius’ missionary
labours in Scotland grew out of these lives, combined with the
fictitious character of the early history of Scotland as it is
represented by Fordun. The oldest Lives of Patrick are those in the Book
of Armagh; and Tirechan, whose annotations contain our first notices of
his life, states that Palladius ‘suffered martyrdom among the
Scots’—that is, the Irish—‘as the ancient saints relate.’[54] Muirchu,
whose Life was compiled soon after, says, after narrating his mission to
Ireland, ‘Neither did those rude and savage people readily receive his
doctrine, nor did he wish to pass his time in a land not his own; but
returning hence to him who sent him, having begun his passage the first
tide, little of his journey being accomplished, he died in the territory
of the Britons.’[55] The next notice we have of him is in the Life
attributed to Mark the Anchorite which belongs to the beginning of the
ninth century, and is added to the _Historia Britonum_ of Nennius. Here
Palladius is not allowed to land in Ireland at all, ‘but tempests and
signs from God prevented his landing, for no one can receive anything on
earth except it be given him from above. Returning, therefore, from
Ireland to Britain, Palladius died in the land of the Picts.’[56]
Probus, who had the Book of Armagh before him, and embodies many
passages of Muirchu’s Life in his own narrative, repeats his account of
Palladius, but substitutes for the expression ‘in the territory of the
Britons’ that of ‘in the territory of the Picts.’[57] The Life termed by
Colgan the third follows that of Muirchu, and states that ‘he returned
to go to Rome, and died in the region of the Britons.’[58] Another Life
makes Palladius land in Ireland and found three churches there; but
‘seeing that he could not do much good there, wishing to return to Rome,
he migrated to the Lord in the region of the Picts. Others, however, say
that he was crowned with martyrdom in Ireland,’[59] alluding in the
latter part to the statement of Tirechan. The Tripartite Life says that,
‘on turning back afterwards, sickness seized him in the country of the
Cruithne, and he died of it.’[60]
Thus far we find that the oldest view was that he suffered martyrdom in
Ireland. This is followed by the statement that he died in the territory
of the Britons on his way back to Rome. The territory of the Picts is
then substituted for that of the Britons; but this evidently points to
Galloway as the place where he landed and died, if he had not been
martyred in Ireland. Finally the storm, which Mark the Anchorite tells
us hindered his landing, is now made to execute a more remarkable feat.
One of the earliest lives of Saint Patrick is the hymn attributed to
Fiech of Sletty, and in the Scholia attached to it we are told that
Palladius founded three churches in Ireland; ‘nevertheless he was not
well received by the people, but was forced to go round the coast of
Ireland towards the north, until, driven by a great tempest, he reached
the extreme part of the Modhaid towards the south, where he founded the
church of Fordun and Pledi in his name there.’[61] Another biographer,
not satisfied with this, removes his martyrdom from Ireland, and, after
narrating the founding of the three churches, tells us that ‘after a
short time Palladius died in the plain of Girgin, in a place which is
called Forddun. But others say that he was crowned with martyrdom
there.’[62] The place meant is undoubtedly Fordun in the Mearns, the
Irish form of which name was _Maghgherginn_, and the storm here drives
him from Ireland to the north, through the Pentland Firth, and along the
east coast southwards till he reaches the coast of Kincardineshire, and
dies at Fordun.
This form of the legend, which takes him round Scotland to the territory
of the Picts on the east coast, evidently owes its origin to the fact
that the church of Fordun in the Mearns was dedicated to Palladius under
the local name of Paldy, and was believed to possess his relics. How
then came his dedication and his relics there if he had no mission
himself in Scotland? The notices of Terrananus may throw some light upon
this. He is said in the Breviary of Aberdeen to have been a native of
the province of the Mearns, to have been baptized and instructed in the
Christian faith by Palladius, and to have died and been buried at
Banchory on the river Dee, called from him Banchory-Ternan. His day in
the Calendar is the 12th of June, and on that day Angus the Culdee has
in his metrical Calendar,—
‘Torannan, the long-famed voyager
Over the broad shipful sea.’
Now the scholiast upon this Calendar records a tradition that he was the
same person with Palladius. He says,‘Torannan, the far-famed voyager,
that is, Palladius, who was sent from the successor of Peter to Erin
before Patraic. He was not received in Erin, whereupon he went to Alban.
He is buried in Liconium.’[63] Liconium was probably the old name of the
place afterwards called Banchory-Ternan. The probable solution is that
Terrananus or Ternan really was a disciple of Palladius, and brought his
relics either from Ireland or from Galloway to his native district in
the territories of the southern Picts, who, we know from Bede, had been
converted, perhaps not long before, by Ninian of Candida Casa, and, as
the founder of the church of Fordun in honour of Palladius, became to
some extent identified with him. Add to this Fordun’s assumption that
the Scots to whom Palladius was sent as first bishop were the
inhabitants of Scotland, and we see upon what his statement was based.
There were, of course, no Scots in Scotland at that time. But, by thus
appropriating Palladius, Fordun brought himself into a dilemma.
According to his fictitious and artificial scheme of the early history
of his country, the Scots had colonised Scotland several centuries
before Christ, and had been converted to Christianity by Pope Victor I.
in the year 203. But if Palladius was their first bishop in 430, what
sort of church had they between these dates? He is therefore driven to
the conclusion that it must have been a church governed by presbyters or
monks only. Hector Boece gave the name of Culdees to the clergy of this
supposed early church; and thus arose the belief that there had been in
Scotland an early church of Presbyterian Culdees.
Although we may thus accept Terrananus as a disciple of Palladius,
Servanus has no claim to be regarded as possessing the same character.
Fordun tells us ‘In the History of Saint Kentigern we read that Servanus
was the disciple of the reverend bishop Palladius, almost in the very
earliest days of the Scottish Church;’ and again, ‘On his arrival in
Scotia he (Palladius) found Saint Servanus there, and called him to work
in the vineyard of the Lord of Sabaoth; and when afterwards the latter
was sufficiently imbued with the teaching of the church, Palladius
appointed him his suffragan over all the nation of the Scots. So runs
the story in that work.’ These passages are quoted from a Life of
Kentigern, a fragment of which, containing the passage in question, is
still preserved.[64] In this life the birth of Kentigern is placed at
Culross, where he is received and educated by Servanus. Kentigern died
in extreme old age in 603, which places his birth towards the beginning
of the sixth century; but unless the life of Servanus had extended
beyond the century, he could not have been found in Scotland by
Palladius if he arrived in 430. It would be just possible that he might
have been a disciple, were it not that the Life of Servanus has also
been preserved. It is contained in the same MS. with one of the lives of
Kentigern, and seems to have been recognised by the church of Glasgow as
the life of the same Servanus who was his instructor;[65] but when we
turn to this life, we do not find in it the least mention of either
Palladius or Kentigern. Servanus is there brought in contact with
Adamnan, abbot of Iona, who flourished in the seventh century; and he
founds the church of Culross in the reign of Brude, king of the Picts,
who filled the throne from 697 to 706 in the latter part of the life of
Adamnan.[66] It is obvious, therefore, that there is a great anachronism
in placing this Servanus as the instructor of Kentigern, and that he in
reality belongs to the century after his death. We are thus left with
Terrananus or Ternan alone, as having: any claim to belong to this
period, and the dedications to him show that the field of his labours
was the territory of the southern Picts, who are said by Bede to have
been converted some time before by Ninian.
Although we thus lose two traditionary apostles of the early Scottish
Church, we find, on the other hand, indications of a connection between
this church of the southern Picts and the church in Ireland which
belongs to the first period in the Catalogue of the Saints of Ireland
and is said to have been founded by Patrick. Nectan, who is called in
the Pictish Chronicle king of all the provinces of the Picts, and
reigned from 458 to 482, is there said to have founded the church of
Abernethy in honour of St. Bridget; and we are told in the Life of
Boethius or Buitte, who founded the church of Mainister Buitte in
Ireland and died in 521, that he arrived in Pictland with sixty
followers, ten of whom were brothers and ten virgins; and finding
Nectan, king of that land, just dead, he raised him to life, and
received from him a grant of the fortress in which his miraculous
recovery had taken place, where he founded a church.[67] In the
dedications of the churches in the territory of the southern Picts, we
find traces of the presence of two other saints who belonged to this
early period of the Irish Church. The church of Inchmocholmoc, now
Inchmahome, in the Loch of Menteith, is dedicated to Mocholmoc, whose
day in the Calendar was the 6th of June, and this identifies him with
Colman of Dromore, in Ireland, who was called Mocholmoc.[68] He was an
Irish Pict, a disciple of Ailbe of Emly, and founded his monastery of
Dromore at latest before the year 514. Fillan, called _an lobar_, or the
leper, whose day is 20th June, was also a disciple of Ailbe, and is said
in the Irish Calendar to have been of _Rath Erenn in Alban_, or ‘the
fort of the Earn, in Scotland;’ and the parish of Saint Fillans, at the
east end of Loch Earn, takes its name from him, while the church of
Aberdour, on the northern shore of the Firth of Forth, is also dedicated
to him.[69] Further than this we can throw no light upon this early
church among the southern Picts.
[Sidenote: Early Dalriadic Church.]
Towards the end of the fifth century, however, there took place among
them a settlement of an Irish people who were already Christian. These
were Scots from the district in Ireland termed Dalriada, forming the
north-eastern part of Ulster, and extending from the river Ravel to the
Bann. We are told in the Lives of St. Patrick that he visited this
district of Dalriada, and founded several churches in it; and that when
he again revisited it for the purpose of confirming and extending the
faith, he found the twelve sons of Erc in possession of the sovereignty,
and prophesied of one of them, Fergus mor, son of Erc, that he should be
a king, and that the kings of that land, and also of Fortren, in the
land of the southern Picts, should descend from him;[70] and Tighernac
records that ‘Fergus mor, son of Erc, with the people of Dalriada, takes
possession of part of Britain and dies there.’ They appear to have
landed in Kintyre and spread from thence along the coasts of Argyll,
which from them took the name of Dalriada. For sixty years they appear
to have gradually , until their extended their possessions encroachment
upon the land of the Picts, towards the north, brought down upon them
Brude, son of Maelcu, the powerful king of the northern Picts, from whom
they sustained a great defeat; and they were for the time driven back
into Kintyre. This Dalriadic people brought their Christian religion
with them, and, during this period of sixty years of their advance into
the country, appear to have extended themselves as far as the island of
Mull, so as to embrace the island of Iona within their bounds, for in
this island we are told the three sons of Erc—Loarn, Fergus, and
Angus—were buried; and Fordun is probably recording real events when he
tells us that Domangart, the son of Fergus, and Gabran his grandson,
after whose death the Dalriads were driven back to Kintyre, were buried
here.[71] There does appear, in fact, to have been in the island of
Iona, even at this early period, a Christian establishment of that
peculiar collegiate form which appears at this time in Ireland: for
among the groups of seven bishops whom Angus the Culdee invokes in his
Litany, we find ‘the seven bishops of Hii’; and again, apparently the
same group, as ‘the seven bishops of the church of Ia,’ another form of
the name of the island.[72]
The extensive prevalence of the dedications to Bridget or Bride in the
West Highlands and Islands shows the influence of the Irish Church at
this period in the western districts; and we learn from the old Lives of
St. Bridget that she was visited shortly before her death, which took
place in 525, by Nennidius, son of Ethath, ‘de partibus Mula,’ which
Colgan rightly takes to mean the island of Mull.[73] The dedications to
Odhran or Oran, too, in the islands connected with Dalriada, probably
belong to this earlier Dalriadic Church. Besides the cemetery in Iona
called Reilic Odhrain, he appears in Tyree, where there is a
burial-ground called Claodh Odhrain, in Colonsay at Killoran, and in
Mull at Tiroran, on the north bank of Loch Scridan. He appears to be the
same person as Odhran or Oran of Leitrioch-Odhrain, now Latteragh, in
the barony of Upper Ormond and county of Tipperary in Ireland, whose
death is recorded on the 2d October 548. He was of the same stock as the
people of Dalriada.[74]
[Sidenote: Church south of the Firths of Forth and Clyde.]
When we turn to the district south of the Firths of Forth and Clyde,
which contained a mixed population of Britons, Picts, and Saxons, the
former two of whom alone professed Christianity, we find, as we might
expect, that there was a connection between the Christian Church there
and both the British and the Irish Church. With the British Church we
may connect those sons of Brachan or Brychan who are said to have
founded churches in Manau. These are Rhun Dremrudd and Rhawin, two of
his sons who are said to have founded churches there and to have been
slain by the Saxons and Picts. Another son, Arthur, was buried in Manau;
and Nevydd, the son of Rhun, is said to have been a bishop in the north
and likewise to have been slain by the Saxons and Picts. In one account
his church is said to have been at _Lechgelyddon_, or ‘the Stone of
Celyddon’ or Caledonia, in the north; and his name is probably preserved
in Rosneveth, now Roseneath.[75]
The connection between this church and that of Ireland appears from the
legend of St. Monenna, of which we have three versions. She is said to
have been consecrated as a virgin by St. Patrick, and to have formed a
society consisting of eight virgins and one widow, and founded the
church of Cillsleibhe Cuillin, now Killevy in the county of Armagh. In
one of these legends she is said to have sent one of her virgins called
Brignat to Rosnat, a name by which, as we shall afterwards see, Candida
Casa, or Whithern, was known. Three days after her death, one of her
virgins who succeeded her, called Tannat, dies. In another form of the
legend she is said to have founded seven churches in Scotland: one at
Chilnecase in Galloway, a second on the hill of Dundonald in Ayrshire, a
third on Dumbarton rock, a fourth in the castle of Strivelyn or
Stirling, a fifth at Dunedene, ‘which in Anglic is called Edeneburg,’ a
sixth on the hill of Dunpelder in East-Lothian, and the seventh at
Lanfortin or Longforgund in Gowrie, where she is said to have died; and
her relics were divided between the Scots, English, and Irish, the first
portion being at Lanfortin and the last at Cillsleibhe. In the third
form of the legend she founds many churches and monasteries in Scotland:
one in Strivelyn or Stirling, one at Edeneburg on the top of the rock in
honour of Saint Michael, three in Galloway, and one at Lanfortin. Here
we see that her churches were mainly founded at the principal fortified
posts in the country. Her death is recorded in the year 519.[76]
Such are the few scattered notices of this church which we are able to
substitute for the fabulous missions of Palladius and Servanus in
Scotland at this time. It was confined to the southern Picts, the
Dalriads, and the population south of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, the
tribes forming the nation of the northern Picts, and occupying the
districts north of the great mountain range called the Mounth, being
still pagan; and we find indications that the church, as then
constituted, proved ineffectual to win over the people to any great
extent to a thorough adoption of Christianity, and that a very general
relapse to paganism had taken place.
[Sidenote: Apostasy of early churches.]
Jocelin is probably reporting a genuine tradition when, in his Life of
Kentigern, he says that the Picts, who had received the faith from
Ninian, had lapsed into apostasy; and so also the author of the older
Life of Kentigern, when he terms a king of the Picts of Lothian
‘semi-pagan.’[77] St. Patrick, in his epistle to Coroticus, written
probably towards the end of his life, terms Coroticus, in whom we have
already recognised that Ceretic Guledig from whom the kings of Alcluith
or Alclyde were descended,[78] ‘a tyrant who fears neither God nor his
priests,’ and his followers ‘wicked rebels against Christ, and betrayers
of Christians into the hands of the Scots and Picts.’ The latter, too,
he repeatedly terms the apostate Picts, and says that the people ruled
by Coroticus were no longer ‘his fellow-citizens, or the fellow-citizens
of pious Romans, but were the fellow-citizens of demons,’ and the
‘associates of Scots and apostate Picts.’[79] It is apparent that the
churches founded by Ninian and Patrick had in the main failed to effect
a permanent conversion of the native tribes to Christianity, and that
the latter was doomed to witness, even in his own life, a great
declension from the Christian Church and relapse into paganism.
It required a different organisation to establish the Christian Church
on a firm and permanent basis among them, and to leaven the whole people
with its doctrines and rules of life. The introduction of the monastic
element, and its application to the entire organisation of the Church,
not only effected what a church with its secular clergy had failed to
do, but led to that remarkable outburst of missionary zeal which sent
from the shores of Ireland a stream of Christian missionaries invading
the Continent in every direction, converting the people and founding
monasteries among them, of whom Columbanus was the forerunner.
-----
Footnote 1:
There is a very able paper in the recently published volume of the
remains of the late A. W. Haddan, which originally appeared in the
_Christian Remembrancer_, on ‘The Churches of British Confession.’ It
contains an admirable _résumé_ of this question, and the deductions of
the writer are unquestionably sound. With the views in this paper the
author entirely concurs.
Footnote 2:
Bede, _Hist. Ec._, B. iii. c. iv.
Footnote 3:
An extract from this Life is given by Usher, _Brit. Ecc. Ant._, and an
abstract of it in Bollandus, _Acta Sanct._, Sept. 16. In the Felire of
Angus the Culdee we have, at 16 Sept., _Moinend nuall cech genai_,
‘Monenn the shout of every mouth;’ and the gloss is _Moinend Cluana
Conaire Tomain hi tuaiscert h. Faelan_, ‘Monenn of Cluan Conaire Toman
in north Hy-Faelan,’ in Leinster. The Martyrology of Tamlacht has
‘Monenn, _i.e._ Ninianus episcopus Candide Case.’ Monenn is merely
_Nenn_ or Ninian with the Irish _mo_ or ‘my’ prefixed, as is usual in
naming these saints.
Footnote 4:
‘Florentio et Dionysio Coss. (A.D. 429) ... Agricola Pelagianus,
Severiani Pelagiani Episcopi filius, Ecclesias Britanniæ dogmatis sui
insinuatione corrupit.’—Prosper, _Chron. Opp._ i. 400, 401.
Footnote 5:
‘Florentio et Dionysio Coss. (A.D. 429) ... ad actionem Paladii
diaconi Papa Cœlestinus Germanum Antisiodorensem Episcopum vice sua
mittit, et deturbatis hæreticis Britannos ad Catholicam fidem
dirigit.’—Prosper, _Chron._ 401. Prosper wrote two chronicles about
the year 455. The share taken in the mission by the Gallican bishops
is reported by Constantius in his Life of Germanus written some thirty
years after. The two accounts are not inconsistent. See Haddan and
Stubbs’ _Councils_, vol. i. p. 17, note.
Footnote 6:
‘Basso et Antiocho Coss. (A.D. 431) ad Scotos in Christum credentes
ordinatus a papa Cœlestino Palladius primus episcopus
mittitur.’—Prosper, _Chron._
‘Et ordinato Scotis Episcopo, dum Romanam insulam studet servare
Catholicam, fecit etiam barbaram Christianam.’—Prosper, _Cont.
Collat._ xxi. (A.D. 432).
There can be now no question that the Scots to whom he was sent were
those of Ireland.
Footnote 7:
See Dr. Todd’s _Life of Saint Patrick_, p. 189, for a critical
examination of the facts which seem to imply an earlier Christianity
in Ireland.
Footnote 8:
Protestant church historians are unreasonably jealous of admitting any
connection between the early British or Irish Church and Rome; but the
Rome of the fourth and fifth centuries was not the Rome of the middle
ages. It was the church of St. Jerome and St. Augustine. There was no
question then about supremacy, and the bishop of Rome was simply
regarded with deference and respect as the acknowledged head of the
Christian Church within the western provinces of the empire of which
Rome was the capital. Questions of ecclesiastical supremacy did not
emerge till the empire was broken up.
Footnote 9:
See ‘The Irish Monasteries in Germany,’ _Ulster Journal of Arch._,
vol. vii. p. 233, and authorities there quoted.
Footnote 10:
Columbanus in Epist. to Pope Boniface IV., says—‘Nos enim SS. Petri et
Pauli et omnium discipulorum, divinum canonem Spiritu Sancto
scribentium, discipuli sumus, toti Heberi, ultimi habitatores mundi,
nihil extra evangelicam et apostolicam doctrinam recipientes.’ He
calls himself ‘perigrinus Scotus,’ and adds,—‘Sed talia suadenti,
utpote torpenti actu ac dicenti potius, quam facienti mihi, _Jonæ_
Hebraice, _Peristeræ_, Græce, _Columbæ_ Latine.’—Migne, _Patrologia_,
vol. 37, coll. 275, 282.
Footnote 11:
Hefele, _Concilien Geschichte_, vol. i. p. 317; vol. ii. p. 758.
Footnote 12:
There is no clearer account of the difference in the reckoning of the
days of the moon than that in the letter of Abbot Ceolfrid to Nectan,
king of the Picts, given to us by Bede, and probably his own
composition (_Hist. Ec._, B. v. c. 21). The ordinary idea that the
British and Irish Churches derived their mode of keeping Easter from
the Eastern Church, or from the disciples of St. John, is based upon a
mistake, and arises from their being occasionally but erroneously
termed quarto-decimans from their celebrating Easter on the fourteenth
day of the moon when it fell upon a Sunday; but the Eastern
Christians, to whom this name was properly given, differed essentially
from them by invariably celebrating Easter on the fourteenth day,
whether it fell on a Sunday or not.
Footnote 13:
‘Dominis Sanctis et in Christo patribus vel fratribus, episcopis,
presbyteris, cæterisque sanctæ Ecclesiæ ordinibus.’—Migne,
_Patrologia_, vol. 37, col. 264.
Footnote 14:
‘Domino Sancto et in Christo apostolico patri Papæ.’—_Ib._ col. 226.
Footnote 15:
Hefele, _Concilien Geschichte_, vol. ii. p. 16.
Footnote 16:
This Catalogue was first published by Usher from two MSS., and is
believed to be the work of Tirechan, the author of the annotations on
the Life of Saint Patrick in the Book of Armagh. His period is the
eighth century.
Footnote 17:
The Litany of Angus is contained in the Leabhar Breac, and also in the
Book of Leinster.
Footnote 18:
This was certainly the Roman or Western Form.
Footnote 19:
The names of the kings are given, but it is unnecessary to add them.
They reigned till the year 534.
Footnote 20:
Some retained the Roman Form, others adopted the Gallican introduced
by David, Gillas, and Docus.
Footnote 21:
The kings mentioned reigned to the year 572.
Footnote 22:
This is followed by the names of twenty-five saints of this order.
Footnote 23:
The names of seven bishops and eight presbyters are given.
Footnote 24:
The Book of Armagh has been very inaccurately printed by Sir William
Betham in his _Irish Antiquarian Researches_. An edition of this most
valuable MS. has long been promised by the then Dean of Armagh, now
Bishop of Down, and it is hoped that he will still accomplish it. It
would be an invaluable boon to all students of Church history. See
_Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy_, vol. iii. pp. 316, 356, for
an account of this MS. and of the authors of the lives.
Footnote 25:
The author adopts the theory that the summary of Aidus appended to the
annotations of Tirechan contains the headings of the chapters of the
first part of Muirchu’s life.
Footnote 26:
Betham, _Ant. Res._, App. pp. i, ii, and xliii.
Footnote 27:
_Ibid._ App. xxxv. xxxvi. In this passage xiii. is probably written
for viii. either in Sir W. Betham’s manuscript or in the original MS.
Theodosius became sole emperor in 423. His eighth year was therefore
431, and his ninth 432.
Footnote 28:
Pertz, _Mon. Germ. Hist. Script._, vol. v. p. 533.
Footnote 29:
Usher, _Sylloge_, Ep. xi.
Footnote 30:
Adamnan, _Vit. S. Col._, ed. 1874, p. 107.
Footnote 31:
A careful edition of the Confession and Epistle, with a translation,
is annexed to Miss Cusack’s _Life of Saint Patrick_, to which the
references are made.
Footnote 32:
Qui fuit vico Bannavem Taberniæ.—_Conf._ The natural inference
certainly is that Tabernia was the name of the district in which
Bannavem was situated.
Footnote 33:
Ingenuus fui secundum carnem; Decurione patre nascor.—_Ep. Cor._
Footnote 34:
Et iterum post paucos annos in Britanniis eram cum parentibus
meis.—_Conf._ The expression Britanniis or Britannicis in the plural,
clearly designates the Roman province in Britain. He calls it here his
‘patria.’ ‘Parentes’ may be either parents or relations.
Footnote 35:
He alludes to words spoken when he was fifteen years old. ‘Quod
confessus fueram ante quod essem diaconus.’—_Conf._
Footnote 36:
‘Vos scitis et Deus qualiter apud vos conversatus sum a juventute mea
et fide veritatis et sinceritate cordis; etiam ad gentes illas inter
quas habito, ego fidem illis præstiti et præstabo.’—_Conf._ The same
thing is implied in his epistle to Coroticus, where he says that he
had sent a letter by a holy priest, ‘quem ego ex infantia docui.’ If
he had taught this priest from his infancy, he must himself have been
long in Ireland.
Footnote 37:
In his Confession he says that, when about to be given the rank of a
bishop (‘gradus episcopatus’) a fault was brought up against him which
he had committed thirty years before, when he was fifteen; and his
epistle to Coroticus commences ‘Patricius peccator indoctus, scilicet
Hiberione constitutis episcopum me esse futeor certissime reor, a Deo
accepi id quod sum.’
Footnote 38:
In his Confession he says he had been desirous to go ‘in Britanniis
... quasi ad patriam et parentes; non id solum, sed etiam usque
Gallias.’ This excludes the idea that he could have been a native of
any part of Gaul. Britanniæ is the well-known expression for Roman
Britain. In his epistle to Coroticus he says, ‘Non dico civibus meis,
neque civibus sanctorum Romanorum.’
Footnote 39:
Et hæc est confessio mea antequam moriar.—_Conf._
Footnote 40:
Et ut clerici ubique illis ordinarentur ad plebem nuper venientem ad
credulitatem.... Unde autem Hiberione, qui numquam notitiam habuerunt,
nisi idula et himunda usque nunc semper coluerunt, quomodo nuper
effecta est plebs Domini et filii Dei nuncupabantur. Filii Scotorum et
filiæ Regulorum monachi et virgines Christi esse videntur.—_Conf._
Footnote 41:
O speciossissime, atque amantissimi fratres et filii, quos in Christo
genui, enumerare nequeo.—_Ep. Cor._
Footnote 42:
The word is _Sruith episcop_. Sruth is the Irish equivalent of cleric.
Footnote 43:
The word is _Crumthir_. In the Sanas Cormaic we have _Cruimther_,
i.e. _Gaedelg indi as presbyter_, ‘that is the Gaelic of
presbyter.’—Stokes, _Three Irish Glossaries_, p. 9. In Nennius the
number of presbyters is increased from 300 to 3000, and in the
Tripartite Life to 5000.
Footnote 44:
By the council of Sardica in 347 a canon was passed prohibiting
bishops being placed in small cities or villages where a single
presbyter was sufficient.
Footnote 45:
Bingham’s _Ant._, Book ii. c. 12.
Footnote 46:
_Copt. Coll._, Book i. Can. i. 11. Bunsen’s _Hippolytus_, ii. p. 27.
Footnote 47:
Bingham’s _Ant._, Book ii. c. 11; Book ix. c. 3.
Footnote 48:
Colgan, _A.SS._, p. 312. St. Mochonoc’s church was called Gailinne nam
Breatan, or Gallen of the Britons, in King’s County.
Footnote 49:
St. Paulinus of Nola says (Ep. 7) of some of the monks of his time in
Gaul, that they were ‘casta informitate capillum ad cutem cæsi, et
inæqualiter semitonsi et destituta fronte prærasi.’
Footnote 50:
Betham, _Ant. Res._, App., pp. xxxiii. xxxix.
Footnote 51:
O’Hanlan, _Lives of the Irish Saints_, vol. ii. p. 84.
Footnote 52:
Dr. Todd’s _Life of St. Patrick_, p. 34. The notices from the Irish
Calendars are taken from those of Tamlacht and Donegal.
Footnote 53:
Fordun, _Chron._, B. iii. cc. 8, 9.
Footnote 54:
Qui martyrium passus est apud Scotos, ut tradunt sancti
antiqui.—Betham, _Ant. Res._, App. xxxvi.
Footnote 55:
Sed reversus ad eum qui missit illum revertere vero eo hinc, et in
primo mari transito cœpto qui erat parum itinere in Britonum finibus
vita factus.—_Ib._, App. i.
Footnote 56:
Sed per quasdam tempestates et signa illum Deus prohibuit, quia nemo
potest quicquam accipere in terra nisi fuerit datum desuper, et illa
Palladius rediens de Hibernia ad Britanniam ibi defunctus est in terra
Pictorum.—Nenn., _Hist. Brit._ Ed. Gunn.
Footnote 57:
Ad fines Pictorum pervenisset ibidem vita decessit.—Colg. _Tr. Th._ p.
48.
Footnote 58:
Tertia Vita, _ib._ p. 23.
Footnote 59:
Quarta Vita, _ib._ p. 38.
Footnote 60:
Hennessy’s translation in Miss Cusack’s _Life of S. Patrick_, p. 378.
Footnote 61:
Colgan, _Tr. Th._, p. 5.
Footnote 62:
Secunda Vita, _ib._ p. 13.
Footnote 63:
These and the other notices of St. Ternan will be found conveniently
collected together in the Preface by the late Bishop of Brechin to the
Missal of Arbuthnot.
Footnote 64:
It is printed in the _Chartulary of Glasgow_, and also in the volume
of _Lives of Saint Ninian and Saint Kentigern_, edited by the late
Bishop of Brechin for the series of _Scottish Historians_, vol. v. p.
123.
Footnote 65:
This life is printed in the _Chronicles of the Picts and Scots_, p.
412.
Footnote 66:
The chronicle in the _Scala Cronica_ has under this Brude, ‘En quel
temps veint Saint Servanus en Fiffe.’—_Chron. of Picts and Scots_, p.
201.
Footnote 67:
_Chron. Picts and Scots_, p, 410. The church was probably Carbuddo, or
Castrum Boethii, near Dunnichen, the old name of which was Duin
Nechtain.
Footnote 68:
Lanigan, _Ec. Hist._, vol. i. p. 432. In Ireland the custom existed of
prefixing the word _mo_ or ‘my,’ and adding the word _oc_, or
‘little,’ to the name of a saint, as an expression of endearment. When
the name ended with the syllable _an_, the word _oc_ was substituted
for it. Thus Colman becomes _Mo_cholm_oc_.
Footnote 69:
June 20, _Faolan amlobair i Raith-Erann in Albain._—_Mart. Don._
Footnote 70:
_Chron. Picts and Scots_, p. 17.
Footnote 71:
The old chronicles have ‘Yona insula, ubi tres filii Erc, seu Fergus,
Loarn, et Angus sepulti fuerunt.’—_Ib._ pp. 151, 174, 288. Fordun says
of Gabran, ‘cujus ad sepeliendum corpus ad ecclesiam Sancti Orani
delatum est, ubi patris et avi funera quiescunt in Hy insula.’—B. iii.
c. 24.
Footnote 72:
Angus has _Secht n-epscoip na Hii_, and also _Secht n-epscoip Cille
Hiæ_—‘The seven bishops of Hii,’ and ‘The seven bishops of the church
of Ia.’
Footnote 73:
Colgan, _A.SS._ p. 112. Mula certainly is Mull, and the old parish of
Kilnoening in Mull probably takes its name from him.
Footnote 74:
_An. IV. Mag._, vol. i. p. 187. In the Martyrology of Tamlacht this
Odhran appears on 2d October as _Odran Lathracha_; and again on 27th
October as _Odrani sac. Lettracha vel o Hi_, that is, ‘Odran, priest
of Latteragh, or of Iona.’ Angus the Culdee has on 27th October _Odran
Abb. Saer Snamach_, ‘Odran, Abbot, noble swimmer’; and in the gloss it
is said he was either ‘Odran the priest of Tech Aireran in Meath, or
Odrain of Lethracha-Odhrain in Muskerry, and of Hi Columcille—that is,
of Relic Odrain in Hii.’—(Forbes, _Calendars_, p. 426.) This
identification of the Oran of Relic Oran in Iona with Oran of
Latteragh places his death in 548, fifteen years before Columba, with
whom he is connected in popular tradition, came to Scotland. The first
appearance of this story is in the old Irish Life of Columba. It is as
follows:—‘Columcille said thus to his people, It would be well for us
that our roots should pass into the earth here. And he said to them,
It is permitted to you that some one of you go under the earth of this
island to consecrate it. Odhran arose quickly and thus spake, If you
accept me, said he, I am ready for that. O Odhran, said Columcille,
you shall receive the reward of this; no request shall be granted to
any one at my tomb unless he first ask of thee. Odhran then went to
heaven. He founded the church of Hy there.’ This story, however, was
unknown to Adamnan, who records the natural death of one of the
brethren whose name was either Brito or who was a Briton, and adds
that he was the first of the brethren who died in the island (B. iii.
c. 7). Neither does the name of Odran appear in the oldest lists of
the twelve companions of Columba; and Angus the Culdee expressly says
the Odran celebrated on 27th October was an abbot, which the Oran of
the tradition could not have been. The epithet of swimmer, too,
alludes to an incident in the life of S. Odran of Latteragh.—See
Colgan, _A.SS._, p. 372.
Footnote 75:
See _Lives of the Cambro-British Saints_, pp. 272, 602, for an account
of Brychan and his family. He had an impossible number of children,
varying in different legends from ten to twenty-four sons and
twenty-six daughters. It has already been remarked (see vol. i. p.
160, note, and the _Four Ancient Books of Wales_, vol. i. p. 82) that
some of these sons and daughters are connected with _Brycheiniog_ or
Brecknock in Wales, and others with Manau Guotodin in the north, and
with the men of the north. It is obvious that there must have been two
Brychans, and that two different families have been mixed together.
The name Brychan comes from _Brych_, ‘speckled,’ the Gaelic equivalent
of which is _Breacc_, and seems to refer to a characteristic of the
Picts. It enters into the name _Brycheiniog_ or Brecknock in Wales,
and we also find it in two different localities in Scotland. In Manau
Guotodin, the chief church, that of Falkirk, was called _Ecglis
Breacc_, or ‘the Speckled Church,’ the Saxon equivalent of which was
_Fahkirk_, from the word _Fah_, signifying speckled. There is also the
river Briech, and on the Firth of Forth Briechness, now Bridgeness. In
Forfarshire we have also Brechin. The northern family seem to have
been the same as that of the ten sons of Braccan, son of Bracha Meoc,
king of the Britons, who found churches in Ireland, as one of the
sons, Iust, is said to have been of _Sleamna in Alban_ or Scotland;
and another, Maconoc, we find in the patron saint of Inverkeilor in
Forfarshire. There is there also a church called Neveth, and in the
_Cognatio_ the sepulchre of Brachan or Brychan is said to be ‘in
insula que vocata Enysbrachan, que est juxta Manniam.’ Mannia stands
here for Manau in the north, and it is possible that Inchbrayoch in
Forfarshire, which was dedicated to Saint Braoch, may be the island
meant.
Footnote 76:
Pervenerat etiam in Albaniam, id est Scotiam, in qua ædificaverat
ecclesias in Christi nomine, quarum hæc sunt nomina.
Una est Chilnecase in Galweia.
Altera vero in cacumine montis, qui appellatur Dundeuel, quia sic
semper solebat, sicut prædiximus, ut supra nudam petram nudis
membris in noctibus oraret Deum, qui semper orandus sit, sicut
scriptura ait; ‘Orate sine intermissione,’ et reliqua.
Tertia autem in alto montis Dunbreten.
Quarta in castello, quod dicitur Strivelin.
Quinta vero Dunedene, quæ Anglica lingua dicta Edenburg.
Sexta enim Mons Dunpeleder, et illinc transfretavit mare in Albaniam
ad Sanctum Andream.
Post hæc vero exiit ad Alecthae, ubi modo est optima ecclesia, quam
Lanfortin aedificavit cum quodam fonte sanctissimo, et mansit illic
aliquanto tempore et multum dilexit illum locum, in quo in fine vitæ
suæ, ut affirmaret, Domino volente, emisit spiritum.—_Vita S. Mon. a
Conchubrano_, cap. vii. 66; _A.SS._ Boll. ad 5 July.
Another Life of Saint Monenna, printed by Capgrave, has
Multis itaque signis in Hibernia declaratis, ad regem Scotiæ nomine
Conagal cognatum suum profecta multas ecclesias et monasteria
construxit, inter quæ
Apud Strivelin unam et
Apud Edenburgh in montis cacumine in honore Sancti Michaelis alteram
edificavit ecclesiam.
Et in Galwedia tres nominatas a fundamentis fecit ecclesias.
Monenna appears in the Calendars on 5th and 6th July; and on the
former day the Irish Calendars have Saint Edania, Edœna, or Edana.
In the Scotch Calendars she appears only in that of David Camerarius
on 5th July as ‘Sancta Moduenna, virgo in Laudonia et Galovida, Scotiæ
provinciis celebris;’ but the Breviary of Aberdeen has on 19th
November ‘Medana virgo Dei castissima ex Ybernia oriunda.’ The account
given of her in the ‘Lectiones’ is shortly this:—Flying from the
attempts of a ‘miles quidam illius provincie nobilis,’ she takes
refuge in Scotland, having crossed in a vessel with two handmaidens,
‘et ad partes Galuidie superiores que Ryndis dicitur arripuit ubi
pauperculam laborando egit vitam.’ The soldier still pursuing her, she
and her maidens embarked upon a stone, which floated thirty miles ‘ad
terram que Farnes dicitur ubi nunc Sancte reliquie virginis
acquiescunt.’ The Breviary places her in the time of Ninian. ‘Tandem
vitam in sanctitate et paupertate transigens sub sanctissimo et
beatissimo patre Niniano antistite pridie kalendarum Novembrium animam
a corpore Domino jubente seperari permisit.’—_Brev. Ab._ xiii. Id.
Dec.
The churches of Kirkmaiden in the parish of that name and the Rinns of
Galloway, and in the parish of Glasserton and district called Farnes,
were dedicated to this Medana. She is, however, probably the same
person as Monenna, also called Moduenna and Edana, and these may have
been two of the three churches said to have been founded by her in
Galloway, the third being the church called Chilnacase, which may have
been at Whithern or Candida Casa, where Medana is said to have died.
It is impossible from the lives to ascertain her true date, as they
are full of anachronisms; but the Ulster Annals have at 518 ‘Quies
Darerce que Moninne nominata est.’
Footnote 77:
Cap. xxvii.—Picti vero prius per Sanctum Ninianum ex magna parte ...
fidem susceperunt. Dein in apostasiam lapsi....
Rex igitur Leudonus vir semipaganus.
Footnote 78:
See vol. i. p. 158, note.
Footnote 79:
See Miss Cusack’s _Life of Saint Patrick_, p. 613, for this epistle
and a translation, and for the expressions above quoted.